SP Strategy Mini Guide

Before we get too far into this we need to define just what we mean by SP - that is to say social Points - which are the new (or relatively anyway) point-based currency that was added to the game after LP.

It's no secret that the missions and access to specific content are largely level-based.

What does SP Get You?
The obvious question you may be asking yourself is what exactly is the point of SP? The answer is really very simple - many of the desirable and rare Objects in the game can ONLY be obtained using SP!

What are these? Well, we are not going to include a comprehensive list - you can look that up in the game - but we will illustrate the point with a selection of the different things you can buy and do with SP below:

From the above you should get an idea of the whole point - by spending SP you can decorate your Sim homes with a particular color, flare, and even decade as the focus.

One of the more appealing factors is the ability to decorate and accessorize a home with a 1950s, 1960s, 1970s or even 1980s motif - for example among the special computers and desk sets you can obtain by spending SP are a TRS 80 Computer (for the 1980s) or an Apple Macintosh (1990s) -- there is even an iPad on a stand that represents the 2010s!

The SP options even extends to outdoor decorations - our favorites being the Pirate Flag flagpole and the wooden Captain's Wheel just to name two. The point to this is that SP is the key to really and truly making your Sim homes unique to you so that they impress your mates and stand out when they visit your town to collect their own SP from Quests!

The Acquisition of SPsocial Points are obtained primarily in three ways:

Of these three methods Purchase is obviously the most reliable as it is an on-demand action. socialQuests in your Neighbor town is the next reliable method, while Action-based SP are pretty rare indeed.

Purchased SP
You can purchase SP via the online game store, which you access either by tapping the Shopping Cart Icon on the bottom right center of the screen, or by tapping the SP Bank Total on the top center of the screen. Both of those will take you to the game store, where you have the following options for purchasing this point-based currency:

Remember that the Cost in Money column below is Real-World Funds, and NOT in-game currency.

If you examine the cost per unit above you will note that it actually varies considerably, but that the most expensive package - the $99.99 one - offers the cheapest per-unit cost at .049 cents per unit. The next least expensive per-unit cost is the $5.99 package with works out to .054 per unit.

Considering that $100 is a lot of money to spend on what is, after all, virtual currency, most players are not going to want to choose that package and the ones that do choose it can afford to (obviously) indulge in that sort of gesture!

So the $5.99 package is very likely to be the one that is most often chosen for players who do purchase SP in the game for obvious reasons. We suspect that this is not an accident - that the $6 price tag was reached after study of the typical spending habits of the typical gamer who does spend money on micro-transactions or Freemium Grinder games.

We don't have an opinion one way or the other as to whether you should be paying for SP in the game - we choose not to, but if you can afford it, well, after all it will get you the Objects in the game that you desire and that can only be had with SP...

Remember that community buildings can also be used for completing SP missions in your neighbor's towns!

Reward SP
This is perhaps the most common (even preferred) method for obtaining SP - especially when you stop and consider that it adds entertaining things for you to do to the game.

The SP Reward Quests are found on the bottom Bar of the expanded Active Tasks Menu, which is found on the bottom-right-hand-corner of the game screen. When you expand the Active Tasks Menu you are presented with three Task Types or Classes: The Special Tasks (like the Seniors Quests), the Weekly Tasks (which you complete to obtain Keys that you can then use to open prezzies in the Mystery Shop), and finally the social Tasks.

It is interesting to note that of the three, both the Weekly Tasks and the social Tasks CAN be skipped by spending LP... That system is in place so that if you draw a Task you simply cannot complete due to your Neighbors not having the required item in terms of Social Tasks, or YOU not having it for Weekly Tasks, you have a relatively painless out.

Examples of the social Tasks that you might draw include (but obviously are not limited to) the following:

From this brief selection you should get the idea... The fun in completing these - and the SP - is also joined by the bonus of obtaining XP and sometimes money as well as the social pleasure, so this is really a win-win all the way around in terms of Game Play and gains.

Action SP
This third source is not one you can count on - in fact in all the time we have been playing since the SP were added the only Activities that we have actually ever obtained SP from were Pet Treasure Hunt digs and Ghost Hunting.

Now it is possible that SP can be obtained from other Activities, but we have not noticed it. So all things being equal this third source should be considered as a serendipity sort of Event and not included in your SP strategy at all!

SP is as important and possibly more important than LP - and you want to bank as much as you can before the life stage timers kick in!

An SP Strategy
Clearly paying real-world funds for SP should be your choice of last resort, so let us take a look at the obvious focus, which is socialQuests.

Productive Strategy
So assuming for the moment that you are not Mister Rich Man Man or Miss Money Bags, chances are pretty good that you will not be spending real-world money on SP - and unless you are wicked lucky, you will not be obtaining piles of SP as the result of random tasks. That being the case, it will be the social Tasks that you will be looking to, then, for the bulk of your SP.

So your basic productive strategy then is to pick a specific Sim for ALL of the general social Tasks (those being any Tasks that do not actually require a specific skill) AND pick a specific Neighbor town to visit for all of these.

Next you should pick a specific Sim house in that specific Neighbor town for a very good reason... The Sim house you pick should have at least four (4) Sims resident, with at least two (2) being adults. You should make some effort for your designated Sim to become Best Friends with two (2) of those Sims, romantically involved with one (1), and Enemy to one (1).

By doing this you cover almost all of the basic bases when it comes to interaction - when the social Task requires you to make out or Woohoo with a Neighbor Sim you have that covered via the romantic level of the relationship with the designated Sim.

When you need to be evil, you already have an enemy. When you need to be nice or do a higher-level friend task, you have that covered as well.

Ideally at least one of the Sims could be a preteen or teen since that will cover Children interactions, and you see where this is going?

By focusing your efforts on one house in one town and one family of Sims, you basically streamline the entire SP acquisition process. When it is necessary to add additional Sims of either Friend or Enemy types you can simply pick another house in the same Neighborhood.

Jun 25th 2015
Guest
I would love to be able to do neighbor tasks...which I cannot do since I seem to be unable to add any neighbors :( I have added several Sims friends on fb, and I have gone to the screen where you add neighbors from your fb list. That is as far as it goes. I cannot seem to get any neighbors at all. Frustrated.